Interviews
Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya: Devastated and Hopeful
Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya is an art- and myth-maker whose work distorts the imaginary lines that exist on land between states. His chimeric “lil beings,” as he calls them, are reconfigurations of found, personal, and organic materials, which he animates with allegories of displacement, inspired by ancient Mesoamerican myth and folklore.
Operating Along Desire: Derrick Woods-Morrow
Tyra A. Seals speaks with Derrick Woods-Morrow about deconstructing masculinity, moving through feeling, and interventions on the sartorial codes of male-identified bodies.
Karen Holmberg: Archaeology in an Emergency
In Part Two of this two-part conversation, Karen Holmberg discusses the seemingly intractable problem of convincing people that they are in danger, or helping them to see that the world is changing around them and encouraging them to mitigate, or prepare for, those changes.
Jared Buckhiester: Male Trouble
Jared Buckhiester and Logan Lockner discuss the thrill and humiliation of attraction, the influences of Billy Budd and Querelle on Buckhiester’s current exhibition, and the question of how much of a person’s “arousal template”—the fantasies, thoughts, images, sights, and smells that turn you on—is given, rather than chosen.
Nikima Jagudajev: Getting To Know Each Other in Public
Nikima Jagudajev choreographs the social. In her latest work, Jagudajev brings together the following elements: Dance, the I Ching, food, Zoom, meditation, live musical performance, time portals, long-term collaborators, new performers, and the audience.
Kenneth Tam: The Silence We Hold Between Our Bodies
Re’al Christian speaks with Kenneth Tam about his recent work Silent Spikes; the entwined mythologies of American Cowboys with Chinese laborers on the Transcontinental Railroad; and the intimacy—and intensity—of male coming-of-age rituals.
Karen Holmberg: Archaeology in an Emergency
In Part One of this two-part conversation, Will Corwin and Karen Holmberg discuss her fascination with volcanoes, her discovery of mysterious “spider vulva” petroglyphs, and consider whether these images can still speak to us.
Firelei Báez: The Poetics of Opacity
Cosmo Whyte and Firelei Báez discuss practices of coding, withholding, and “mixing the honey with the sting” in Báez’s symbolically layered works.
Monuments Under Occupation
Patricia Eunji Kim and Mashinka Firuntz Hakopian discuss monuments as physical evidence against cultural erasure, their role in preserving indigenous Armenian histories, and augmented reality as a site for activism and memorialization.
Claudia Peña Salinas: Seeing Sites Without Sightseeing
Claudia Peña Salinas takes stock of how some of the most visited archeological and spiritual sites in Mexico endure tourism for generations, yet still provide eternal inspiration.